A Discriminating Ministry

Next Part A Discriminating Ministry 2

Therefore this is what the Lord says– "If you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth. Let this people return to you, but you must not return to them." Jeremiah 15:19

None of the prophets of the Old Testament seem to have walked in so rough and thorny a path as the prophet Jeremiah. And there seems to be special reasons why it was so. First his lot was cast upon very evil days. It was just at the time when the Lord was wreaking his vengeance upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of Judea, through the hand of the King of Babylon. There was famine in the city, war without, and a dark lowering cloud hung over Jerusalem, which Jeremiah knew from the word of the Lord would soon burst forth into a destruction of the city and of its inhabitants. But he was very jealous and zealous for the honor of the Lord who showed him what was coming to pass. He instructed him in his judgments, and he enabled him to lay before the people what would be the consequence of their transgressions if they repented not. But nobody listened to him. Nothing but persecution met him, and but for the special providence of God, he would have lost his life when he was cast into the pit, where he sunk up to the very armpits in the mud and filth.

But again, he seems to have been by nature a man of a rebellious turn of mind. God's people, like other people, are differently constituted. Some are more weak, placid, mild, gentle, unruffled; others are naturally more inclined to rise up in anger and rebellion. It was so with Jeremiah. He was not one of those smooth, gentle, easy, placable natures that nothing can ruffle. But on the contrary, the make of his natural mind was such that a mere trifle, so to speak, would stir up in the depths of his heart rebelliousness even against God. In fact, taking a view of all the prophets, we find none of them indulging in such– if I may use the expression– daring words against the Lord Almighty, as the prophet Jeremiah. Look, for instance, at the words preceding my text– "Why is my pain perpetual"– as though he would quarrel with God because he could not get it relieved– "why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Why do you not speak the healing word? Why allow my wounds to fret and rankle, when there is balm in Gilead and a physician there? Why allow my wounds thus to fester?"

Then comes that speech, which to my mind is one of the most– what shall I say?– unworthy, inappropriate speeches that man ever made to his Maker– "Will you be altogether unto me as a liar?" What if a man should call God a liar? It is an offence between man and man. Man cannot bear to be called a liar by his fellow; and many a knock-down blow has been the issue of one man calling his brother a liar. For man to be so daring as to speak to God what he would scarcely speak to his fellow man, seems almost atrocious. And yet there is a saving word. He says "Will you be altogether unto me as a liar?" The word "as" softens it down. He did not rise up in such daring as to call God altogether a liar. "Will you be"– it assumes an interrogative form, which softens it still more– "will you be altogether unto me as a liar?" As though he should say to the Lord, "You have promised to support me– where is now that support? You have promised my enemies shall not prevail against me– see how they do prevail. Where is your promise? Why, Lord, it is almost as though you were unfaithful to your word; and as waters that promised to flow to relieve the city, and those waters dried up, will you be thus to your servant who loves your honor, to whom your word is the joy and rejoicing of his heart? Will you be all this to him, so that you are, as it were, like waters that fail– when I need to drink, there is no drink to relieve my fainting thirst?"

Now the Lord deals very tenderly with his servant. He is a patient God. He does not, as he might justly do, launch forth the lightnings of his vengeance and say, "Call me a liar! Take your deserts." No; he speaks very gently and yet very firmly and faithfully– "If you return, then will I bring you again, and you shall stand before me. If you return from this rebellious mood, from this fretful disposition, from these murmuring accusations, and come back to that better mind which becomes your position, and me as your Lord and Master, you shall stand before me and I will make it manifest you have a standing in me and before me that none of your enemies can gainsay or resist." And then he adds the words of the text– "If you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth. Let this people return to you, but you must not return to them."

In these words I think we may see,

First, a condition. I use the word with some degree of reluctance; but still it conveys the idea best. First, then, a condition– "If you take forth the precious from the vile."

Secondly, a promise– "You shall be as my mouth."

Thirdly, a command– "Let this people return to you, but you must not return to them."

I. A CONDITION– "If you take forth the precious from the vile." I shall have to explain, before I enter into my text, what is precious and what is vile; and how these two things are mingled together, supposing it needs the hand of the servant of God to take forth the one from the other.

What, then, may we understand by "PRECIOUS?" We may understand two things by it– something exceedingly scarce and something exceedingly valuable.

Now there are many things which are very valuable which are not scarce– as, for instance, the AIR we breathe. How it fills every place, and how we could not exist even a minute without inhaling the breath of heaven. And yet it is not rare or scarce, for it fills every nook and crevice. Again, look at the RAIN– how precious is the rain; how it falls from heaven and fertilizes the earth and causes the crops to spring forth clothing the fields with grass and making the very valleys to sing. How precious the rain is in a season of drought. And yet only in exceedingly dry seasons like last year can it be said to be rare. Look, again, at WATER– how it flows in our rivers; how it gushes out of the hills and vales; how we have only to dig a few feet into the earth, and there we find this valuable substance, water. How precious; our bodies could not exist without it. Yet except in certain climates, it cannot be said to be scarce.

But, on the other hand, a thing may be scarce and yet not valuable. There are certain minerals or metals, known only to chemists– if I were to tell you their names you could not take them home– but so scarce and so rare as to be only known by means of chemical analysis, and yet they are of no value. There are certain flowers that grow only in one or two spots in England, but only botanists value them. If you were wandering upon a mountain in Wales, and saw a flower which only grows there, you would put no value upon it, nor is it valuable except in the eyes of a botanist. Therefore, a thing may be rare and yet not valuable.

But when it is not only scarce in quantity, but valuable in quality, then we stamp upon it the word "precious" in its true sense. Gold, for instance; silver, diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and precious stones generally– these represent a value in themselves, not merely because they are very rarely to be found, but because they are useful in the way of commerce, as a medium of exchange, applied to various purposes in the arts, or sought after by kings and princes and nobility to decorate their persons. These are instances where a thing is precious, not only for its scarcity, but also for its intrinsic value.

Having thus explained the word "precious," I will do the same for the word "VILE," because I wish you to see distinctly the meaning between the two, so as to carry the idea into spiritual things. "Vile" is something common, cheap, that nobody sets any value upon. That is one sense of the word "vile;" and another is, filthy, polluted, unclean, nasty, abandoned in every way, like the dirt or dung in the streets, which is only a stench and a nuisance. We have the words "precious" and "vile" in Scripture used with respect to men and women, as well as things. We read of the "precious sons and daughters of Zion;" and we read of Eli's sons "who made themselves vile, and their father forbade it not." We read that "the vile person will work villainy and the churl will speak hypocrisy." And Job speaks of himself that he was in their eyes as one that was vile; no, he said, as he felt in his own eyes, "I am vile." (Job 40:4.) And David could say, when taunted with dancing before the ark, "I will yet be more vile than thus, I will be base in my own sight." (2 Sam. 6:22.) Now do you do you think have caught the idea of what is precious and what is vile?

Now I shall go on to show how these are apparently mixed with one another, and how the servant of the Lord, as God's mouth, is to take forth the precious from the vile. And you will observe that the vile is more abundant than the precious, for he is not bidden to take forth the vile from the precious; that would pollute his hands with wickedness; but he is bidden to take the precious from the vile, that he may separate that which is precious to the honor and glory of God, and leave the vile to its own vileness and villainy.

Having thus led you to the words of the text, I shall show you that there are precious characters and vile characters, precious doctrines and vile doctrines, precious experience and vile experience, precious practice and vile practice; and that the servant of the Lord, who is to be mouth for God, is to take forth the precious from the vile that he may be as God's mouth.

1. First, then, who are precious CHARACTERS? They are the sons and daughters of Zion; they are those whom God the Father loved with an everlasting love; they are those whom God the Son redeemed by his precious blood; they are those whom God the Holy Spirit makes his temple, in whose heart he plants the fear of God, and whom he is making fit for the inheritance of the saints in light. These are precious characters. In themselves, they are no better than others; no, in some respects even worse, for it seems as if God had selected some of the most crooked materials, some of the vilest and worst in themselves, to make them vessels of honor meet for the master's use. (2 Tim. 2:21.)

There is, therefore, no difference in themselves. The difference is wholly of God. It is his sovereign grace, and sovereign grace alone, that makes the distinction between the precious character and the vile character. Now this precious character, being precious in the sight of God, is loved with an everlasting love– precious, as bought by the love of his dear Son, and precious, as taken possession of by the Holy Spirit, he is in the sight of God of inestimable value. It is not because there is anything in him. God looks to his dear Son– it is what he is in Christ by virtue of eternal union with the Son of God; it is because he is a member of the mystical body of the Lord Jesus Christ that in the sight of God he is precious.

And who are the vile? The vile are those whom God looks upon as refuse. The vile are those whom he leaves to fill up the measure of their iniquities. The vile are those who practice villainy, who manifest their hypocrisies, and live and die under vile influences that draw down upon them the awful displeasure of the Almighty.

Now these precious characters and these vile characters are apparently mingled together. There may be sitting in the same seat side by side one who is precious and one who is vile. In the same family there may be a precious one and others who are vile ones. In a church, in a congregation, there may be those who are unspeakable precious, and those who are infamously vile. Now the servant of God must take forth the precious from the vile by describing, as the Lord gives him power, what are the marks that manifest him who is precious, and what are the marks that manifest him who is vile. He must show how it is the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the heart which makes one fear God's name, believe in his dear Son, hope in his mercy, love him and cleave to him with purpose of heart, and that by those things he is manifested as precious. On the other hand, the man who is vile is secretly working iniquity against God and his people. Therefore in that sense he is vile. Now when the servant of God begins to open up these mysteries, and traces out who are precious in the sight of God and who are vile, then he is as God's mouth.

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